Samir's Reviews > Retribution Falls

I wanted to try steampunk genre for a long time. To be honest this isn’t my first steampunk read. I’ve read Senlin Ascends a couple of months ago and even though it had some steampunk elements and steampunkish vibe I wouldn’t label it as a steampunk novel per se. That label belongs to Retribution Falls; a full blown steampunk adventure.

You’re probably asking yourself how can I assume the role of the expert on the field and label this or that if this is my first read of that kind. Well, you’re right. I’m not an expert, far from it, but I do have some experience from playing a lot of video games over the years, so I picked up a thing or two.

Retribution Falls is the first book of the Tales of the Ketty Jay series. If you’re coming late to this party (like I am), I have some great news; this is already a finished series so there is no waiting for the next book to come out. Whilst on the topic; there are readers who prefer binge reading and there are ones who like to take a break between books. Well, great thing about this series is that it can be equally enjoyed either way because Wooding intended for each novel to be a standalone and there are no cliffhanger endings.

The blurb reminded me of the TV show Firefly. To be honest, this is what got my attention in the first place because I was a huge fan of the show. Firefly was the show about the crew members of the ship, Serenity. This crew fights criminals and schemers, Alliance security forces, the utterly psychotic and brutal Reavers, and the mysterious men from the The Blue Sun Corporation. The crew is driven by the need to secure enough income to keep their ship operational, set against their need to keep a low profile to avoid their adversaries. Before I draw parallels between the show and book I want to state that I'm not in any way calling this a TV show rip-off. I'm simply wondering if Wooding was a fan of the show as well and was he influenced by the show in any way.

As stated in the blurb, the main character of this novel is Darian Frey, the captain of the airship Ketty Jay, leader of a small and highly dysfunctional band of layabouts, or as the author calls them, a group of sarcastic, cynical, wisecracking liars. He and his gang make a living on the wrong side of the law, avoiding the heavily armed flying frigates of the Coalition Navy.

Besides the Navy there are other forces in this world to be reckoned with; a mysterious religious order called the Awakeners, and the Archduke, with his personal army, the Century Knights. Even though those two opposing powerhouses maintain some kind of a truce between them, the tension is palpable and the Awakeners are always scheming something to seize the reins of power while the Archduke is doing everything in his power to lower their influence in the world and banish them for good.

This book starts a bit sluggish and it took me some time to get immersed in this world and its characters but that changed very soon when the crew was hired to do a seemingly easy job, to attack another airship and retrieve its precious cargo. The job sounded too good to be true and it was. Things go horribly wrong and shit hits the fan big time. From this moment on, I was hooked. The story picked up the pace and it got more interesting and exciting with every page.

Wooding has a great talent for writing action sequences, especially the airship dogfights which I very much enjoyed. They were suspenseful, gun blazing extravaganza, rocketing my adrenaline levels sky high.

Even though this is a story driven novel, we learn more about the characters through their back stories and that gave them another dimension rather than just being a stereotypical band of misfits. It's hard to say more about the story and the characters without revealing important twists so that endeavor is up to you.

The story wasn't original and some developments were predictable but I couldn't care less. It was action packed, light and more importantly, it was fun and that makes this swashbuckling adventure a perfect summer read.